Boys Basketball Player of the Year: Kevin Huerter, Shenendehowa

Shenendehowa senior Kevin Huerter goes up for a slam dunk in the first quarter during a game on Dec. 22, 2015 against CBA as a sold-out student section awaits to erupt after the jam at Shenendehowa in Clifton Park. Shen won, 74-46.
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CLIFTON PARK >> Even the casual Section II basketball fan knows that Shenendehowa senior Kevin Huerter is a special talent.

As someone who has coached Huerter for the last four seasons, Shen head coach Tony Dzikas would go even further by calling the Maryland commit “one of the best talents” to ever play in Section II.

“Kevin is just such an extraordinary talent,” Dzikas said. “The thing with Kevin is he scored 1,000 points with putting passing first. He’s never really had a scorer’s mentality, in the fact that his first thought was that he’s going to fill up the scoring column. He’s going to make sure that the table is set, that his team is in the right spot and that guys are in the right spot. He’s not going to go against two defenders to try to get a shot up, he’s going to find the open guy.”

For his efforts during the 2015-16 season, Shenendehowa guard Kevin Huerter has been named The Saratogian’s Boys Basketball Player of the Year.

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“This season went really well,” Huerter said. “There was a lot of pressure on us to the start of the year, obviously, with the year we had last year. We were going to be everyone’s target on everyone’s schedule, everyone’s going to be geared up to play Shen more so than they had so in the previous years and I think we had a lot of expectations to live up to. We tried to play it off and take everything one game at a time. We knew we were good and I think we had a great year. These past couple of years has been a great ride. Obviously with the relationship I’ve built with players and friends.”

While Huerter’s offensive prowess, his long range and highlight reel dunks, often stole the show, it was his defensive ability that often have put him over the top.

“Kevin makes everyone else around him better and guys will find that out next year how special Kevin is and how he just spaces the floor, he sees the open man and even defensively, I think sometimes that’s overlooked and underappreciated, that he changes shots,” Dzikas said. “He will knock the ball out of the air and off the backboard in a hurry. Defensively he’s so long.”

However, what might have impressed Dzikas the most during his time as Huerter’s coach was the way the senior approached the game.

Even though Huerter played the 2014-15 season as a highly touted Division I recruit and then the 2015-16 as a Maryland commit, he never changed his approach of the game or even his time at school.

“Kevin likes being a high school student, he likes being a high school athlete and he will worry about being a Division I athlete when he is a Division I athlete,” Dzikas said. “He knows that once school ends for him he will be down to Maryland in the blink of an eye. I don’t think he gets much rest at all and he has to go down to Maryland.

“I think he really has the right mentality, but he wants to enjoy it, he wants to savor the high school experience, and that’s why as a Shen community we’re very fortunate. Not just because Kevin was an extraordinary talent, but because he handled himself in a way that it really was about being a Shen athlete, and not just being about Kevin Huerter and what’s in it for me, and in 2016 that’s pretty special.”

Aside from the way he played the game, in the eyes of Dzikas, Huerter’s talent alone set him apart from the pack.

“I think the biggest thing is the way he did it,” Dzikas said. “He’s going to go down as one of the best talents, not just at Shenendehowa, but coming out of the area because of not just his desire to become a better basketball player, but also his gifts that he was given. I think he may be a little over 6-foot-6 now. He has tremendous length, he has tremendous athletic ability, he jumps very well, he sees the court very well so he knows the game, he has a talent and eye for the game and a tremendous basketball IQ. His legacy is (that) he’s basically the most talented, gifted player ever to come out of our school and on top of that he’s a really good kid.”

At one point in time a future playing Division I basketball might not have been on Huerter’s mind.

The all-around athlete loved basketball and baseball growing up and it wasn’t until Huerter’s sophomore year when he decided a journey on the hardwood was the passion he wanted to follow instead of on the diamond.

“It was a couple years ago when I first got into playing with the City Rocks,” Huerter said. “All spring obviously you’re travelling with them and you’re starting up baseball for the summer year and then you’re playing (basketball) a little bit in the summer. There were a couple of tournaments that would overlap each other and I’d go to basketball over baseball, so I made the decision. I fell in love with the game more. I wanted, and I still do want, to play basketball 12 months out of the year.”

Huerter also has basketball in his blood. His father Thomas Huerter starred for Siena in the late 80s and his older brother Thomas Huerter Jr. has committed to join the Saints men’s basketball program for the 2016-17 season.

Kevin Huerter is going to spend his last few months in Clifton Park as a Shen student, and as a member of the baseball team, before he travels down to Maryland on June 20 to join the Terrapins, who were recently eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by Kansas in the Sweet 16.

Huerter will represent Shenendehowa on the hardwood one last time in the High School 3-Point Championship contest during Final Four weekend April 1 at Dawson High School in Pearland, Texas.

“I’m really excited for that,” Huerter said. “Obviously being able to go out to see my first Final Four and travel like that, that’ll be fun. I haven’t really done too many competitions like this before. You watch (NBA) All-Star Weekend on TV and you kind of say, ‘Ah, if I was ever in that...’ So, it will be cool to be in a competition like that.

“I’m very excited. I think (Maryland’s) really headed in the right direction. Ever year since coach (Mark) Turgeon, they’ve gotten better and better. They had a great year this year obviously, they had a lot of talent, and the Sweet 16 is obviously a great season. I’m just going to go in there next year, work hard and do what the coaches ask me to, and hopefully that’ll translate into possibly getting to play.”